Jet Blue A320 Fire Indication and Smoke in Cabin

A Jetblue Airbus A320-200, flight B6-1416 from Long Beach,CA to Austin,TX (USA) with 142 passengers and 5 crew, was climbing out of Long Beach’s runway 30 when the crew reported a fire indication for the right engine, stopped the climb at 9000 feet and returned to Long Beach for landing on runway 30. After the aircraft came to a stop the crew advised the tower they were initiating an evacuation asking whether there was any smoke from the right engine, tower replied: – negative, no smoke, the crew then advised they were cancelling the evacuation but instructed tower to immediately report any smoke. The slides were deployed on all doors and overwing exits and passengers evacuated.

Passengers reported the right hand engine emitted a loud bang, smoke entered the cabin afterwards. The passenger oxygen masks were manually released by the cabin crew.